‘You’re a bright girl. You know who I am.’
Suddenly, Alice thought she did.
‘You’re Inspector Turner,’ she said.
He smiled, showing a broken tooth.
‘A lot of water under the bridge since there was any Inspector,’ he said. ‘The Inspector died when that girl came back from the dead. What’s left is what you see. I’m Alec now, Alice, my girl, just Alec.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s not so bad, you know,’ he added.
‘I thought …’ Alice’s voice cracked. ‘I thought maybe …’
‘You thought I was an undercover policeman come to save all at the last minute?’ He rasped a phlegmy chuckle. ‘No. There was a time …’ His voice trailed away. ‘But that’s all over. She killed me, like she killed Daniel Holmes. It’s just taken a little longer, that’s all.’
He sat down on the window-ledge, his back to the fading greenish light. ‘He told me about the diary, you know,’ he said. ‘Before he went into Fulbourn. About leaving it in the church wall. He reckoned that if Rosemary ever came back, that would be where she would go. He wanted to be cremated, so that she wouldn’t be able to raise him. But he wanted the diary kept safe. Because he’d got it right, you see. Right for the first time yet, and too late for it to do him any good, but right enough for someone else to finish her off for good, for ever. What we did in the flat, he and I—’ Here he broke off and spat, raspingly. ‘But he did have the right idea. She can be killed, and kept buried, so long as no one gets left to raise her. That was it. It was that simple. I knew soon as I saw you that you were going to be the one … you had that look on you. But now …’ He stopped again, clenched his fists in their fingerless gloves. ‘You’re not ready to deal with them, yet,’ he said. ‘You think they’re going to come like lambs? You’ve seen them; she’ll come with the others, the ones Holmes called nightwalkers. You’ve never seen them at work. I came with you; came ready. You think you’ll do anything against all of them at once?’
‘I’m ready,’ said Alice, not quite steadily. ‘As ready as I can be.’
‘With that baby knife? Do you really think you’ll use it?’
‘I thought …’
‘You didn’t think. There’s more important things for you to do than to get yourself killed. You have to do what the old man missed; only you can do that right. Leave me out there, in the alley between the houses. I’ll deal with the ones that come.’
He saw Alice’s stare.
‘You think I can’t? You think that I’m an old drunk with nothing left?’ He reached into one of his pockets, pulled something out.
‘See this?’ he said, holding the gun out to her. It looked old to Alice, almost antique, but it was polished, the wood of the butt oiled like a beloved cricket bat, and the light filtering through the narrow window touched its smooth burnished surface with a cool grey glow.
‘I kept this all through the bad time,’ he said, with pride. ‘When everything got sold, and my wife left me, and they tried to make out that I was crazy. While I got drunk and went on the wagon again. I kept it all the time. I knew that one day I might need it.’ He gestured to her with the gun, grinning his broken, half-senile grin. ‘Go back,’ he said. ‘I’ll watch the street. No one suspects a wino, not in Cambridge, nowhere. I’ll see them come. I’ll stop them. You, just do what you have to do. You’ll know what it is.’ Then, as Alice hesitated, ‘Go on! Time for talk later. I’ve known for years it would come to this; for years, and I’ve been waiting all this time, waiting and wondering whether I might get to die in peace before … but that doesn’t matter much now. What matters is you and me doing the job in hand. Just be careful. The thing wants doing properly this time around. You don’t want to leave anyone to bring her back. Not anyone.’
When Alice was upstairs in the little room Turner had told her about, she looked out of the window, and thought she saw him, hidden in the shadows, a darker smudge against the stone of the alley, imagined him keeping watch against what might come.
She was a little way beneath the roof, in what must once have been an attic, and there was a tiny unbroken window through which she could see most of the street. It was cold by now, and she had taken one of Turner’s blankets to wrap around her legs as she waited, because half the roof was open to the grey evening sky. She had found a flask of tea, and several bars of chocolate. When she had finished the food and drink she began to feel warmer, and by about ten o’clock she was beginning to feel drowsy.
Suddenly, as she drifted, her eye caught a movement below her, and instinctively she drew back. Very carefully, she came to the window again, and peered through the dusty pane. There. A kind of flicker in the shadows, as of a pale face turned furtively upwards to the light. Someone was watching the house.
Alice felt sick, adrenalin rushing to her head. Not now, she thought frantically; she wasn’t ready. The reality of where she was flooded her; she was alone, unknown, in the nightwalkers’ den, with only what she had brought to protect her. No one would know what had happened to her if she disappeared.
Mentally she shook herself. At least, she had the advantage of surprise over them, she thought. She would be ready for them before they even knew she was there. Daniel had done it, and in the same house. They could not know she was there. She was safe.
On the other hand, Ginny had her friends to help her, the very thought of which turned Alice to ice. She forced herself to look again. Yes, there it was, only visible to her searching, panic-sharpened gaze. It was watching.
She reached for the knife, felt its weight, ridiculously like a studio prop, in her hand. Despite everything, the weight was comforting, and the sick feeling abated, just a little. Alice forced herself to move.
Very quietly, holding the knife before her, she began to creep down the stairs, her eyes straining against the dark. Inch by inch, she crept down the stairs, her shoes making no sound against the rotten floorboards, her blood a double-bass drum in her throat. She forced herself to breathe, though the temptation to listen, to stop breathing so as not to miss the slightest sound, was very great. One … Two … In … Out … Avoiding the steps which were unsafe, she concentrated on the breathing, on the pounding of her blood, and with those preoccupations uppermost in her mind, managed to reach the bottom of the stairs. There was no one else in the house.
Outside, then, thought Alice. She had seen one figure only, but there might be more. Should she go out to meet them? Every sense screamed no, but Alice knew that to delay would only be to give the others a greater advantage when the final meeting came. If she could just creep out … Maybe she would catch them unawares. And Turner was there too, Turner with his gun. The thought that he was there, with his old service revolver tucked carefully under his woolly pink scarf partly reassured her and partly filled her with a kind of hysteria; what could they do, he and Alice, against Rosemary and her friends? A drunken, half-mad old man and a crazy painter, with no real faith in her own sanity?
She tried to hang on to the thought of Turner waiting in the shadows, tried not to think how old and frail he looked, concentrated on breathing. The knife felt slippery in her hand, but in her head there was a sudden coldness as she stepped out into the alley.
The alley, just two feet or so wide, ran alongside the house. Originally it might have been a passage between the front and back of the terrace or a place to leave dustbins, but now it was partially blocked with old cans, pieces of charred wood and other rubbish. She stumbled as she made her way to the mouth of the alley, heard her feet crunch on some piece of debris and froze. Pressing her back against the greasy wall she looked around her in a broad arc, the knife held out stiffly in front of her.
There was nobody there.
She moved closer to the alley’s mouth, partly blocked by a parked car, dared herself to look into the street … braced herself for the sight of them, the nightwalkers, waiting for her, but she saw nothing. What now?
Carefully, she looked around again, the knife raking the air.
/> ‘Be quiet!’ hissed Turner. ‘Do you want them to hear you? Get down!’ They both ducked back down beside the car.
‘I saw someone,’ whispered Alice.
Turner nodded. ‘Stay here and be quiet. Don’t let them see you. I’ll be all right.’ And at that he turned and went back to the mouth of the alleyway and stepped out into the light of the street-lamp. Alice counted to ten and went back to the shelter of the parked car, looked carefully out into the street from beneath its rusty undercarriage. Her field of vision was limited and for a minute she saw nothing, but she was none the less certain that, this time, they were there. She felt them there, in the soles of her feet, in the dirt under her hands, the smell of old rubbish and corruption. She knew they were there.
Somehow, the sight of them was not even a shock. Just a jolt from her heart as it revved up, that droning in her ears which always accompanied the adrenalin-boost. An unexpected voice in her head laughed and muttered – time, gentlemen, please – then Alice took over again, the cool, practical Alice she had encountered in the fairground. No time for panic, she thought, it’s far too late for that now – and she watched for maybe a whole minute through the space under the car, as the nightwalkers came into sight.
They were all there except Ginny. Of course, Ginny would have stayed with Joe; only her minions would stay in the flat. She recognized Rafe by his fair hair, Java by his height and the little sounds she could hear from his motorcycle boots on the pavement. Sounds seemed to be magically amplified in the still night, and Alice thought she could hear all their footsteps, distinctly, individually, as she listened. Still watching she saw Elaine hanging back in the shadows, Anton at her side. The nightwalkers came closer, the light from the street-lamp touching their faces and their forms with a dull, uterine light. Java glanced around him, almost idly, and Alice flinched, certain that he had seen her.
Then she saw his gaze stop, snag abruptly as he saw something. Turner? She heard the old man’s footsteps, audible now, in the street, and she pulled herself a few inches further under the car to watch. A furtive glance around one of the thick rubber-smelling tyres was all she dared try, but she retained an impression of a group of figures crowded around the street-lamp, not three feet from the house, discussing something.
Turner moved towards them with a drunkard’s shambling gait, muttering, seemingly to himself. Then he spoke more clearly, in his ‘street’ voice, ‘Hey! Spare change fr’a cuppa tea? Hey!’
Alice heard the nightwalkers react, heard the sounds of movement as they turned to see who was coming. She recognized Java’s voice.
‘Old man,’ he said quietly. ‘Get on your way without delay.’
‘Wassamatter?’ complained Turner. ‘Jussa copper fr’a cuppa tea. Ten pence. Jus’ ten pence.’
‘Look,’ the voice was sharper now. ‘Get out of the way.’
Alice guessed that Turner was nearer to them now, perhaps almost close enough to touch. She could hear him complaining wordlessly.
‘I’m warning you …’ began Java, now out of Alice’s field of vision. There was a scuffle, as of someone pushing someone else. A scrape of feet on the flagstones. Then she heard a shot. Someone screamed. Then Turner fired again. More sounds, shuffling, running feet, two more shots in rapid succession. Cries. A crashing sound, a breaking of glass. In a couple of seconds, without stopping to think about the danger, she was on her feet, out of the alley and in the street, the knife ready. In the dim orange light she could not see far, but retained the impression of Turner slumping beside the parked car, the pistol skidding out of his hands. Against the side of the car, Rafe was trying to stop himself from falling, his bloody hands printing smeary pentagrams on the glass. A sound at her left and Alice slashed out almost blindly with a cry and felt the blade snag cloth. She leaped forwards at the figure she had touched, and at the edge of the light she glimpsed Anton and Zach, crouching back into the shadows, and she felt a brief exhilaration. Their eyes mirrored, like cats’; Anton hissed, showing his teeth. Then they were gone. A clink of metal from her right, across the road. Java was almost invisible against the night, but she felt his eyes, saw a gleam of buckles and chains as he fled.
Silence.
Alice endured the silence for a minute or so. The street was derelict, and there was no one to come and investigate. Dizzy and drained by the surge of adrenalin, she forced herself to think, to assess and to gather the fragments of what had happened. For a moment, the world spun like a magic-lantern show.
Then she remembered Turner. She called out to him.
‘Here.’ The whisper was almost inaudible, coming from a patch of shadow beside the car. Alice sprinted towards him.
‘Turner?’ For a moment his face was a pale, unfocused blur in the sharp light of the street lamp, then she noticed the blood on his scarf, the side of his face. His hands went up to her face.
‘Got two of the bastards,’ he breathed. ‘That woman. The blond kid. Think I hit the tall bastard. The others got away.’ His breath was a terrible croaking sound in his throat, where the blood bubbled out of the cut flesh.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll call the police. We’ll get you to a hospital. Hang on. Here, let me put this scarf—’
He interrupted her with a gesture.
‘No time.’ He reached for the gun, which had been lost as he fell and was lying beside him on the road. ‘Here. Take it before the others come back. Go on.’
Alice looked around; despite everything, the feeling of victory remained.
‘I don’t think they’ll come back just yet.’
‘Go on!’
But Alice had already grabbed him under his arms, and was pulling him into the alley.
‘It’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘Just hang on.’
In the semi-darkness of the house, Alice managed to light a candle, taken from the upstairs flat, and in its glow she inspected the damage. Turner was still conscious, but had lost blood; his body was shaking with cold and his eyes were bloodshot. The cut was not as deep as it had first seemed, and the knife (if it had been a knife) had missed the windpipe and the main artery.
Alice, whose knowledge of first-aid was rudimentary, could only try to staunch the flow of blood, and pile blankets on the old man to keep him from the cold. The kitchen seemed like the warmest place; there was an old mattress on which Turner could lie, wrapped up in blankets, and the windows were boarded up, so it wouldn’t be too cold. She helped him to walk into the little room and settled him in. When she had done that, she went back into the street and picked up his gun, then, cautiously, she brought the bodies into the alley out of sight. Elaine, with a bullet through the head, pale and almost beautiful; Rafe with three or four bullets in his chest, his thin arms spread, a splash of blood across his angelic child’s face. They must have been killed almost instantly.
Back in the house, with their blood splashed on her arms and face, she began to review the situation. So far, Alice thought, things weren’t looking good. The death of Elaine and Rafe still left her to deal with Java, Zach, Anton, and, of course, Rosemary. They would be forewarned, dangerous and hungry for revenge, Turner was still bleeding – for all she knew bleeding to death, and with no possibility of calling for help – and she had lost her element of surprise.
Alice did what she could; she brought the rest of the flask of tea, and some chocolate from Turner’s hideout, took the gun from his shaking hand, and went into the wrecked lobby of the house to wait. If it was any comfort, she thought bleakly, she was certain they wouldn’t be long.
Two
GINNY SEEMED HALF asleep, her head tucked into the crook of his arm. The lamplight flickered on to her face and lit her hair like fireworks. The curve of her jaw was white, flawless, the baby hair at the back of her neck giving her pallor a golden bloom. She was wearing one of Joe’s pullovers, a dark maroon, and the colour should not have suited her, but somehow it did, emphasizing her air of frailty, the clarity of her child’s complexion. He shifted, carefu
lly, not wanting to disturb her, but she opened her eyes and smiled up at him.
‘Is it nearly time?’ she asked.
Joe nodded. ‘Nearly time. Do you want something to drink? Some chocolate? Something to eat?’
‘I’m not hungry,’ she said.
‘Do you want to listen to the radio? I feel like some … rhythm.’ His hands were nervous, moving to a quick complicated beat of their own against the arm of the chair. Ginny nodded and Joe flipped the switch to FM.
‘I like this song,’ said Ginny, and began to sing softly along to it in a clear voice: ‘… Na na na … Love Street, da-da-da-da. Love Street …’ Her eyes were closed and she was bobbing her head to and fro to the rhythm, completely absorbed.
Joe smiled.
‘I’m surprised you even know it,’ he said. ‘Don’t suppose you were even born when this song came out. It takes an old fart like me to remember that far back.’
‘I’m not that young.’
Joe tried to smile, but his head was aching.
‘What’s wrong, Joe?’
‘Headache. Don’t worry, it’ll go away. I’ve taken some aspirin.’ For a moment he thought he remembered something … something about Alice. Had he blown his top again? Had she …? He shook his head. He couldn’t remember. Suddenly the headache intensified. He felt dizzy, his vision jumbled to a thousand points of light, jiving and spinning before his eyes.
‘Joe? Are you OK?’ Ginny’s voice was all distorted syllables. His own voice, endlessly remote, on a wind of white noise.
‘Here. Take this,’ she said, pressing a tablet into his hand.
‘What is it?’
‘Trust me. You’ll feel better.’
Joe dry-swallowed the pill. It tasted faintly bitter, but almost instantly the sickness receded and the world came into focus again.
Joe took a deep breath.
‘Are you all right?’